A significant and ongoing cause of vehicle damage and risk to life and limb on roadways is animal-vehicle crashes. Of particular concern are animal-vehicle crashes involving large animals such as deer, which occur at highway speeds. Typically, such crashes result from large animals wandering or dashing in a panic onto a roadway in front of an oncoming vehicle. At highway speeds, the speed of the vehicle makes it almost impossible for the driver to avoid a crash in many cases. This is particularly true since many animals, such as deer, are most active in the low light conditions of dawn and dusk, times at which visibility is reduced and, therefore, available driver reaction time is reduced even further. Costly and dangerous animal-vehicle crashes can occur, however, at any time of day and even at less than full highway speeds.
There are many animal species which are involved in animal-vehicle collisions. Among large species, deer are the most commonly involved. In the year 2000, there were 247,000 documented automobile collisions involving deer across the US. Deer-vehicle collisions result in about 200 human deaths and $1.1 billion in property damage each year. State and federal governments, insurance companies, and drivers spend an additional $3 billion in an effort to reduce the number of deer-vehicle collisions. Current methods aimed at collision avoidance include mirrors to reflect car headlights in an effort to keep animals away from roads, fencing, car mounted whistles, warning signs, and other methods such as underpasses allowing animals to cross under a roadway. Despite these countermeasures, collisions continue to occur as motorists and wildlife increasingly encroach upon each other.